Cloudless Sky
by black13dragon
Summary: Cloud centric, CloudxOC Oneshot, Zack makes an appearance. Zack sends Cloud a letter, and assigns a messenger to give it to him, but due to the messengers abilities, she sees Cloud's life, and eventually grew attached. A Heaven-Sent Helper.


yo! so today's Cloud's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLOUD!! :D so i thought of writing something for him, and this is what came up, i wrote this at 5 AM in the morning so bare with me, oh and um, if you're one of those critics that take things waaaaaay too seriously then press the back button, i'm sure you wont like what you;re gonna read here. other than that please enjoy! gimmie a review please! :D :D

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Cloudless Sky

Walking absent mindedly past the shops in the many streets of Midgar, he had finally finished delivering the packages for the day, and he was headed home. He wasn't paying much attention to where he was going sure that his feet would eventually guide him in the right direction. So he allowed his mind to drift, and he thought of everything that has happened to him so far, he thought of his friends and the trouble he's caused the so far, he thought of the battles he had had to fight, and the battles his friends had had to fight for him, and the friends that had died for him, the friends he had let die, he thought of Zack, Aerith, and eventually he's arch enemy Sephiroth, even thoughts of the experiments Shinra's scientist's had put him through sprung up to mind.

His mind got dragged back to earth, when he felt something –or someone- slam into him. He blinked repeatedly, as if he had just awoken from a deep slumber, and glanced down, as the person in question was much shorter than he.

"Sorry!! Really sorry, but I wasn't exactly looking where I was going, not like that would be much help anyway," the girl gave him a cheeky grin, as she scratched the back of her head, "I'm really sorry!!..."

And thing else she said afterwards fell deaf to his ears, he was far too focused, submersed in memories as he stared at the girl standing before him, emerald green eyes, like the leaves of trees in the middle of spring, shinning brilliantly, and he noticed the resemblance, Aerith's eyes were just as green and stunning, his eyes fell upon her hair, and where he thought he would see brown, the color of chocolate, he saw jet black, as dark as the midnight sky, in contrast to her pale skin, that was now tinted red, her hair was also a resemblance to someone dear and departed, her hair was identical to Zack's, just as messy and daring, but her eyes and hair were at the same time somehow different, as if she had taken the colors and made them her own, he felt slightly annoyed at that. He blinked repeatedly, his mind had drifted off again, he focused and listened to the girl's words, apparently she had been stalking about something, the disappearance of her grin and the appearance of a frown told him it was something important, not that he cared about other people's problems or anything. But he couldn't hold back a very small faint smile at resemblances.

"yeah, so I'm new in town, looking for someone actually, I'm supposed to find them at a place called…" she looked down at the scrunched up paper in her hand, and when she moved to look up to say what she read, her words died on her lips, and he just noticed that the entire time she stood before him, never did she sneak a glance at him, only once at his hair, but other than that, never. The girl fell silent as her eyes met his, emerald met sapphire, for a moment the two stood silently, staring, not a word was said, eventually her back pack that hung on her left arm, slid down said arm and fell by her feet, he moved to pick it up, but at that moment the girl chose to speak, "you're…"

The pulled up her bag, and rummaged through it, like a man on mission, only to pull out a photo and an envelope, she stared at the picture then at him, then at the picture then back again. There were two men in the photo, one was older than the other, the eldest had jet black hair and eyes the color of the sky, the other had Spiky blonde hair and the same eyes, and he looked identical to the man standing before her, only slightly younger, "you're… you're Cloud Strife…"

His ears perked up instantly, committing the sound of her voice saying his name to his memory, her voice was quiet melodic, with a childish hint to it, but the tone of it all was a mixture of relief, astonishment, and joy, like the tone of a person's voice when they meet an old dear friend they had missed so much. And all of a sudden to Cloud's own astonishment, her arms were wrapped around him, she held him tightly for a while, not letting go. Cloud didn't know how to react, first she slams into him and tells him the story of her life, and know she was hugging him like an old friend, Cloud was confused, was he missing something? Was she an old friend he had forgotten? Or was she simply a crazy person out to get him?

Cloud could only pat she awkwardly on the back, not sure if that was even the right thing to do, instantly, the girl pulled away, as if realizing how awkward it must be for him.

"Oh, sorry!! I forgot that you don't know who I am!" she said, as if that simply explained it all, but the blank look and the raised eyebrow from Cloud told her that it wasn't enough of an explanation, "but I know you, that's why I hugged you… " still, the eyebrow only got higher, as if her words weren't exactly the right ones, "umm.. I know this is confusing, but…" she looked down at her feet, then at poor paper in her hand, the look on her face told Cloud she was having an idea, and for some reason he had the feeling that it wasn't the best of ideas, but never the less, he waited, she glanced up at the confused Cloud, and gave him a grin, "let's go some place familiar to you.. How 'bout… this?"

An image of Zack's makeshift grave, with the Buster Sword acting as the Tombstone, came to Cloud's mind. He gave her a nod, making a mental note to ask her how she did that. But as he walked towards his motorcycle, only to have her hop on behind him, the man knew that whatever she had to tell him was not something to be dealt with lightly.

* * *

The two stood on the hill, over viewing the vast desert, filled with miles and miles of sand, stone, rock and bone. The place they stood was where Zack was buried; the Sword protruding from the ground was a marker to where it was. The girl walked solemnly towards it, kneeling down on her knees, she held her hands under her chin in prayer, she muttered words of comfort to the fallen, and as her eyes opened, she parted her hands, and in between them, a white flower hung in mid air, she took hold of it, placed it down next to the sword's blade. She stood up, placing a gentle hand on the Buster Sword's grip, she muttered "I shall gladly do what you said must be done."

She moved towards Cloud, who leaned on his bike as he stared at the Envelope she had given him, on the outside the messy handwriting was unmistakably that of Zack, it read "to the man in constant Strife", Cloud smiled at the pun, it was quiet suitable, he mentally registered that the letter was in fact from Zack himself, the man could not resist any longer, he pulled out the letter, his hands shaking slightly, and as he read, reality shifted and Zack now stood before him, just as Aerith did a few months ago, the man before him began to speak the same words as the ones in the letter,

"Cloud," the man said, his back turned to Cloud himself, his relatively long jet black hair running past his broad shoulders, "hey there, Sulky!" he said with a chuckle, as she turned to face the man in question, "I've been watching you for quite some time… "

"Perv…" Cloud said quietly, shaking his head. The appearance of Zack made his true self come back out.

"Ohho! Is that sense of humor I hear?" Zack said, cupping his ear, "so you're not dead and boring on the inside!"

"Ouch… that hurt…" Cloud said sarcastically.

"And I'm supposed to believe that?" Zack questioned, jumping at Cloud, head locking him, and rubbing his fist into Cloud's head, Cloud began to struggle, but Zack easily overpowered him. He pulled away as he continued "back to the point, I'm not exactly happy with what you're doing to yourself, and to your friends, stop sulking, man! Get on with your life! Find a pretty girl, marry her, and make beautiful babies! Oh and uh.. Name one of them Zack for me, will ya?"

"Yes, I will definitely name my unborn Child Zack, Zack." Cloud muttered sarcastically, and he got punched in the shoulder for it.

"Again with the sarcasm!" Zack said, then burst into laughter, "I dunno! Do something other than Sulk, Cloudo!! And no, mourning and feeling like shit don't count either!"

"You know me too well…"

"As I said, I've been watching you," Zack said, giving him a look of mock anger, "what I'm saying Cloud is… Dream! Love! Live! Protect! Anything!!"

"…" Cloud sighed sadly, he understood. The two moved on to sit in the grass, "so, how's it going? Up there? In the Lifestream?"

"Well the view from up there is fantastic! I've got Aerith and Angeal…" Zack gave a contented sigh, then he added jokingly, "who says hi by the way, oh and she agrees with me, her exact words were 'stop sulking! And forgive yourself already!'" the two fell into silent chuckles, "yeah, it's great up there, everything is beautiful and amazing, we still do our own kind of fighting though, I'm still doing my duty as SOLDIER here on my end!"

"And all I do is deliver stuff," Cloud said miserably.

"At least you've got company now."

"I don't have any company…"

"Are you sure?" Zack said with a smirk, an image of the black-haired, green-eyed beauty came into mind, "you perfect opposite, I handpicked her myself, and Aerith helped too, she's not just a messenger Cloudy, she's going to try to help you, and I didn't even try to convince her, I think she was just sort of drawn into you," Zack burst into a fit of laughter, Cloud had a light blush crossing his features.

"I don't need anyone's help." Cloud said solemnly.

Zack glared at him and raised an eyebrow, "you sure? 'Cause you kinda seem like you need help to me, with all the sulking and mourning, guilt and remorse, bitterness and unhappiness, antisocial behavior and the fleeing. You do need help whether you like it or not." Then Zack added on a lighter note, "she'll bring some happiness and laughter into your life, I'm sure. Oh and as a plus, I hear she's wild in bed!"

"Zack!" Cloud yelled, punching him in the shoulder.

"Is this how you treat your dead, Cloud? By punching them?" Zack said acting hurt.

"…Zack," Cloud warned.

"Fine, fine, I'll leave you be…" said Zack, as he stood up and walked away, but before he disappeared completely he turned to Cloud with a smirk and said, "for now…"

As soon as he snapped out of the reverie, the girl turned to him with a grin, "now you know, how I know you while you know nothing of me."

"I'll be sure to work on that." he said, a small smile appearing on his lips.

"oh anda…" she began, "I forgot to tell you… my name is Skyler."

"Skyler…" Cloud muttered, looking up at the heavens above with a smile, "Cloudless Sky…"

"For now…" Zack's last words echoed.


End file.
